to_lang 0.3.0: featuring batch translations and a command line utility

to_lang is a gem I wrote for doing translations with the Google Translate API. It adds magic translation methods directly to strings, so you can run things like "How's it going?".to_spanish and "I hope everyone is okay!".from_english_to_japanese.

I just released version 0.3.0, which adds two great new features: batch translations using arrays and a command line utility. All the methods that were previously available to strings are now available to arrays as well, so you can do this:

["Uno", "Dos", "Tres"].to_english
# => ["One", "Two", "Three"]

As you can see, this is much simpler than looping through a collection of strings and calling a translation method on each one. It's also much more efficient because it only makes one HTTP request to the API.

The command line utility gives you a quick and dirty way to run a translation directly from the shell. You run it like this:

$ to_lang --key YOUR_API_KEY --to es "hello world"
hola mundo

You can translate multiple strings at once by simply passing more parameters. If your API key is available in the environment variable GOOGLE_TRANSLATE_API_KEY, you can leave out the --key option. You can specify the source language with the --from option as well.